Your local sports questions answered

After days of extensive research and probing queries to those in the know, the Town Crier has the answers to your burning questions about the local sports scene. At least to the ones readers sent over the last few weeks.

So, without further delay, here goes:

Concern over Pinewood’s Winbigler property usage

Before the ink had time to dry on the final paperwork, some Los Altos Hills residents voiced opposition to Pinewood School’s purchase of the former Winbigler property.

At the city council meeting July 1 residents expressed concern about having facilities for grades seven through 12 built on the seven-acre property. Thirty residents attended a private meeting with Pinewood School officials June 7. Several of them attended and spoke at the city council meeting.

Internet sparks grass roots political drive in Los Altos

Local residents Lauri Steel, Jean Wolman and Kathy Duryea aren’t professional political fund-raisers, yet the three have managed to gather a following of hundreds of Bay Area voters and have raised thousands of dollars for various political causes over recent months.

They plan, with the help of two dozen families, to raise at least another few thousand dollars for John Kerry’s campaign this weekend through a good old-fashioned garage sale at Steel’s Los Altos home.

Three seats up for grabs on LAH council

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The nomination period for city council candidates opened Tuesday in Los Altos Hills, with three council seats potentially up for grabs in the November election.

‘Pocket’ bikes illegal on LA streets, police warn

Those child-size motorcycles that seem to be growing in popularity among the under-18 crowd may look and ride like adult cycles - except for one catc They’re illegal on California streets.

Los Altos police haven’t reported any complaints or accidents stemming from the trendy gas- and electric-powered bikes yet, or from motorized scooters, but that hasn’t prevented the department from launching an educational campaign warning residents about the legal and safety hazards of riding such vehicles.

Freak birth equated ominous warning

• The diviners of ancient Rome considered a freak birth an ominous warning. From the latin “monere” (to warn), they got “monstrum” (divine warning of an ill omen), from which our word monster is derived.

• When Eric the Red discovered a new land of eternal ice and snow in 982 A.D. he wanted to encourage his fellow Norsemen to go there. So, he named it Greenland. Shortly thereafter, 25 ships filled with eager settlers sailed to the place.

Editorial

Legal issue aside, city on right path with plan for neighborhood survey
The current controversy over a proposed bike path in the so-called Hetch Hetchy right-of-way parallel to El Camino Real is due in no small fault to the city’s actions.
After all, the city earned a $434,000 grant from the Santa Clara […]

Letters to the Editor

Community relay a huge success
Pat Osborne
What a community! Los Altos and Los Altos Hills residents came together June 26-27 to help make the community’s first Relay For Life one of the most successful such events to date in the state and possibly in the nation. Great appreciation is extended to the […]

Taking off or landing?

“Are you taking off or landing? As in life,” I asked some friends the other day. One woman’s answer was that in some ways she’s landing and in others she’s taking off. Since both her kids are teenagers, she feels like her primary parenting years are “landing.”

Personally, though, she is taking off. By always doing new things, traveling to new places, she continues to learn and grow. She went on to say that she has good role models in her parents who, upon their retirement, bought a motor home and now travel around the country doing repairs on churches. In their 70s, they show no signs of slowing down and are having the time of their lives.

Obituaries

KATHERINE (KAY) PETERSON
Katherine (Kay) Peterson died July 3, 2004, following a five year struggle with Parkinson’s disease. She was 79. She leaves her husband of 58 years Keith Peterson, a son Bruce Peterson of Aptos, sisters Tena Fematt and Mary Zar of San Pedro, CA and many nieces and nephews. […]

Leigh Malcolm Trowbridge, 1917-2004

Leigh Malcolm Trowbridge, 87, of Los Altos, passed away June 28.

A family memorial was held and burial was at Alta Mesa Memorial Park in Palo Alto.

Erika Adler, one of the founders of Congregation Beth Am

Erika Adler, one of the founders of Congregation Beth Am and a Los Altos resident for more than 50 years, died July 5 after a lengthy illness. She was 89.

Mrs. Adler, born in Mumbai (formerly Bombay), India, was a German national in British colonial India. She spent most of her youth in Germany, but fled the country in the early 1930s with the rise of Nazism.

Crystal Children’s Choir celebrates 10 years of bringing multicultural music to the world

The sight of 750 children raising their voices in song may be quite awe-inspiring, but the beautiful sound emanating from such an ensemble is another experience altogether.

For 10 years, members of the Crystal Children’s Choir have sung Eastern and Western music all over the world, with tour stops including Canada, China, Taiwan, Austria and Hungary. The choir has played Carnegie Hall in New York and last month performed at the Sydney Opera House in Australia.

Cultural fun on tap at Obon festival this weekend

The Mountain View Buddhist Temple’s 52nd annual Obon Festival and Bazaar is scheduled 4-10 p.m., Saturday, and noon to 9 p.m., Sunday, on the temple grounds. The temple is located at 575 N. Shoreline Blvd., in Mountain View, between Montecito and Middlefield roads.

The Obon festival is a midsummer Japanese Buddhist celebration dedicated to ancestors, family, relatives and friends. It is an opportunity to express gratitude for the gifts of life and for all the things taken for granted or forgotten.

Community Briefs

MacArthur Park Wine Festival Aug. 14
The 23rd annual MacArthur Park Wine Festival is scheduled 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., Aug. 14, at the MacArthur Park Restaurant, 27 University Ave., Palo Alto.
The wine festival offers an afternoon of wine tasting, gourmet food and musical entertainment.
The annual festival benefits the Palo Alto […]

Packard Foundation awards $875,000 to local non-profits

The Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health has approved $1.46 million in grants to 13 non-profit agencies that serve children in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties.

Seven of the grants, totaling $875,000, were awarded to programs in Santa Clara County, which has a child population of about 440,000: Big Brothers Big Sisters of Santa Clara County, $115,000 over three years for Community and School-Based Mentoring; Boys and Girls Club of Silicon Valley, $150,000 over two years for the Youth Life Skills and Leadership Program; Community Solutions for Children, Families and Individuals, $125,000 over two years for After School Services, providing drop-in educational support programs for preteens; Friends Outside in Santa Clara County, $175,000 over two years for Steps Ahead, an intensive home-visiting program for parents who have a history of incarceration and their children; Girls For A Change, $100,000 over two years for Girls For A Change, a program to identify challenges their communities face, and then design and implement creative solutions; Via Rehabilitation Services, $120,000 over two years for the Via Injury Prevention Project, to serve parents of children with disabilities or developmental delays; YWCA of Santa Clara Valley, $115,000 over two years for New Options, a bilingual after-school program.

Historic fashion show and tea this Sunday at Los Altos museum

The Los Altos History Museum has scheduled a Garden Tea and Historical Fashions Show 4-6 p.m., Sunday, at the museum, 51 S. San Antonio Road.

The midsummer event will include light tea of sweet and savory selections and a presentation of stylish past wedding fashions.

Two schools of thought on campus proposed for Winbigler property

Fears of rising traffic volume and falling property values are giving neighbors of the old Winbigler property nightmares. The campus proposed for the site, however, is still only a dream for the Pinewood School community.

Creative Center of Los Altos bought the seven acres at 13902 Campo Vista Lane, Los Altos Hills, for an undisclosed amount May 26. County records show that the property has an assessed tax value of $7.2 million. Pinewood’s current upper school is located at 26800 Fremont Road, on a campus leased from the Palo Alto Unified School District.

Jensen qualifies for U.S. Junior Amateur

The unpredictable nature of golf is not lost on Chris Jensen.

Last week on a course that had been more like a curse to Jensen, he played perhaps the best round of his career to win a United States Junior Amateur Qualifier.

Wall Street: bear market in while bulls out to pasture

If you play the market, this is a great month to take a vacation because the stock market has been on vacation since the first of the month due to low volume. You won’t miss much, because the bulls are out to pasture.

There are signs the economy is slowing again; fewer workers were hired in June (Silicon Valley increased by 1,000) and retail sales are down. As an investor, you have to worry about terrorism, rising interest rates and the heating presidential race between Bush and Kerry.

Building industry forecasts no housing bubble in California

Production of new single-family homes across the state slowed slightly in May but continued to exceed the pace set a year ago, according to statistics released today by the California Building Industry Association (CBIA).

May housing starts, measured by building permits issued, indicated that permits for single-family homes in California totaled 13,490, down 4.8 percent from April but 6.3 percent above the same time period in 2003. Total housing permits, including permits for the volatile multifamily market, numbered 17,352 in May, down 3 percent from the month before and 4.8 percent from May 2003.

Hints for summer parties

For those looking to host a party at home, food is always a top consideration.

What type of food should you serve? How much should you buy? How far ahead should you prepare the dishes?

Quick, easy summer recipes

Entertaining friends and family can be a daunting task, especially if you’re the one doing the cooking. The following recipes are recommended to take some pressure off the cook.

Kiwi Cafe Salad

Orringer’s characters explore territory between childhood and adulthood

Reading Bay Area writer Julie Orringer’s short story collection, “How to Breathe Underwater” (Alfred A. Knopf, 2003), is like turning a diamond and watching how the different facets transform light: refracting it into shards of color or focusing it into beams of blinding brilliance.

Desperate to glean adults’ secrets, characters explore the perilous liminal territory between adulthood and childhood by flirting with power, violence, drugs, intimacy, sin. Some, like Ella in “Pilgrims,” are pushed deep into a no man’s land where children rule. They hear only an indistinguishable Charles Schultzian “wah-wah” from their parents’ side, the sound too far away to offer comfort. Others, like Lucy and Melissa in “Stars of Motown,” try to hurl themselves across the border, only to find they still long for the safety of childhood, however illusory. Still others are pushed prematurely toward adulthood, like Tessa in “Care,” who finds herself in free fall as the unfinished business of her childhood continues to haunt her.

Book sales to support literacy efforts

Beginning today, Main Street Cafe & Books is donating 10 percent of all proceeds from book sales to promote literacy through the East Palo Alto Kids Foundation.

The non-profit foundation helps meet the educational needs of children in East Palo Alto. The foundation provides direct financial aid for the purchase of books and literacy training aids for teachers. Foundation members carefully monitor the funding.

Alternatives to college prepare students for jobs

Not all high school graduates continue to a four-year college after graduation. Some enroll in a technical school or community college for financial reasons or to pursue personal interests that don’t require a bachelor’s degree.

Many such schools in the area train students in high-demand fields such as business, design and technology. Following are examples of such local facilities.

Datebook

Datebook items are run on a space-available basis for entertainment, non-profit events, low-cost classes and groups of wide interest in our circulation area. Deadline is noon, Tuesday, for the next week’s paper. We do not guarantee items will appear. Notices must be typed and include a contact name and number. Mail to Datebook, Town Crier, 138 Main St., Los Altos, CA 94022; fax 948-6647; or e-mail peteb@latc.com (no attachments).

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